1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a contents rating method for rating a plurality of content items (for example, music pieces, still pictures, moving pictures, literature texts, and computer programs) by evaluators in a public review, popularity poll, public audition, and the like by use of computer networks or public switched phone lines.
2. Description of Related Art
Today, the public rating of contents is popularly practiced by use of computer networks or public switched phone lines. In the contents rating, a list of works or works themselves to be rated are presented to their evaluators from a server via a computer network or a public switched phone line. Each evaluator references the presented list to select particular works and listen to, view, or read the selected works for rating. The evaluators send their rating results to the server via the computer network or the public switched phone line. The server compiles the collected rating results and performs an overall rating on each of the rated works.
The lists of works or works themselves under rating are presented in a fixed order of their application numbers or titles for example. Therefore, if all evaluators rate all works, weights of the ratings are impartial to one another.
However, in a public review, a popularity poll, or a public audition, it is seldom for all evaluators to evenly rate all the presented works. Often, many evaluators tend to evaluate only the works which appear at the beginning of the list, then quitting the rating on the remaining part of the list. This tendency gets stronger as the number of works under rating increases.
As described, the above-mentioned related-art technique of rating works presents (or displays) them in a fixed order of their application numbers or titles for example, so that the works presented at the end of a list are rated less frequently than those presented at the head of the list, resulting in a lower reliability of overall rating, which is not attributable to the works themselves.